t native people. But it needed neither contrast nor
comparison to induce an admiration for Captain Hamilton's sister.

She was of a certain Celtic type, above the medium height, with the
freedom of carriage and gait which is the peculiar possession of her
country-women. Her face was a true oval, and her complexion of that kind
which tans readily but does not freckle.

Eyes and mouth were firm and steadfast; she was made for ready laughter,
yet she was deep enough, and in eyes and mouth alike you read a
tenderness beyond disguise. She had a trinity of admirers: her brother's
admiration was natural and critical; Sanders admired and feared;
Lieutenant Tibbetts admired and resented.

From the moment when Bones strode off after the painful discovery, had
slammed the door of his hut and had steadfastly declined all manner of
food and sustenance, he had voluntarily cut himself off from his kind.

He met Hamilton on parade the following morning, hollow-eyed (as he
hoped) after a sleepless night, and there was nothing in his attitude
suggestive of the deepest respect and the profoundest regard for that
paragraph of King's Regulations which imposes upon the junior officer a
becoming attitude of humility in the presence of his superior officer.

"How is your head, Bones?" asked Hamilton, after the parade had been
dismissed.

"Thank you, sir," said Bones bitterly--though why he should be bitter at
the kindly inquiry only he knew--"thank you, sir, it is about the same.
My temperature is--or was--up to one hundred and four, and I have been
delirious. I wouldn't like to say, dear old--sir, that I'm not nearly
delirious now."

"Come up to tiffin," invited Hamilton.

Bones saluted--a sure preliminary to a dramatic oration.

"Sir," he said firmly, "you've always been a jolly old officer to me
before this contretemps wrecked my young life--but I shall never be
quite the same man again, sir."

"Don't be an ass," begged Hamilton.

"Revile me, sir," said Bones dismally; "give me a dangerous mission, one
of those jolly old adventures where a feller takes his life in one
hand, his revolver in the other, but don't ask me----"

"My sister wants to see you," said Hamilton, cutting short the flow of
eloquence.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Bones hollowly, and strode into his hut.

"And what I'm going to do with him, Heaven knows," groaned Hamilton at
tiffin. "The fact is, Pat, your arrival on the scene has thoroughly
demoralized him."

The